


The Last

by komiv



Series: For They Were Mortal [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Prose Poem, in which the author fights a lot with formatting, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 15:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4671170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komiv/pseuds/komiv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all change is good.<br/>But nor is it all bad.<br/>It is always, however, <i>different.</i></p><p>Clan Lavellan sends one of its hunters to investigate the Divine Conclave being held across the Waking Sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last

**Author's Note:**

> One-shot prequel for my Inquisitor Lavellan, messing around with some poeprose stuff for a change of pace. I wrote this a month or so ago, finally got around to posting it.

_“We are the Dalish: keepers of the lost lore, walkers of the lonely path. We are the last of the Elvhenan, and never again shall we submit.”_

_―The Oath of the Dales_

\--

The clan is near Wycome when the news arrives on the back of a trader’s cart. In between exchanging goods, the trader speaks of the Divine Conclave, the hope for peace in the Mage-Templar war.

                 It is the collective breath held as the world waits.

“Who cares?” Faraan spits.  

                 Shem politics. The Chantry. Neither has cared for them ever before.

“Change,” the Keeper says, "can mean many things, da’len.”

                 Not all change is good.

                 But nor is it all bad.

                                                    It is always, however, _different_.

They wait. They listen. The trader tells them what he knows.

\--

Mahanon and Sivel are away hunting, and hear the news retold upon their return. Isiren, Keeper’s Second, meets them at the edge of camp, excited and hushed because Istimaethoriel is _thinking_.

When last the Keeper set to _thinking_ about something, they crossed the Free Marches to settle closer to a human city than ever before.

The time before that she sent Ellana, her First, in search of the Clan Sabrae last seen outside of tumultuous Kirkwall. The paths of Sundermount lay empty of all but the whispers of ghosts and _dark things hence_. Found was the grave of Marethari Talas, may Falon’din guide her soul to rest.

Now Keeper Istimaethoriel is _thinking_ again and again the clan prepares for the unknown. She calls her First and her Second to her aravel, and they talk together long into the night. 

The hunters grow restless, and Faraan goads Mahanon into a spar to pass the time. Clashing blades count minutes into hours. Food is passed around. Duties are tended. As the first light of dawn touches the eastern sky, the Keeper asks Mahanon to join them.

Mahanon stays in the aravel for just long enough for the sun to pass the horizon. When he steps out, his face is uncertain and he tells Sivel that the Keeper wishes to speak with him next. Ellana and Isiren leave the aravel, but they are quiet and offer little explanation.

“Istimaethoriel will explain when she is ready,” they say.

The clan waits.

The sun climbs higher, and the Keeper comes out, Sivel at her side. He meets Mahanon’s gaze across the camp and they both know that he accepted what Mahanon turned down.

A nod is exchanged. An understanding.

The clearing falls silent and Keeper Istimaethoriel explains.

The outcome of the Conclave will determine the shape of the world for all thereafter. The Dalish cannot stay ignorant of the Chantry’s plans if they wish to preserve the People, to preserve their way of life. To prepare, to act, they first must _know_ , and so she sends one of their own to observe what will occur.

Sivel leaves the next day in order to reach the Conclave in time. The clan gathers to see him off, as they did when Ellana left them briefly years before. Istimaethoriel gives him her blessing.

“Mythal protect you,” the Keeper says. “Andruil watch your path.”

He accepts the boons of absent gods in silence and bows his head.

Isiren worries for her little brother, alone and away from the clan. “Come back safe to us,” she says. “Promise me.”

“I will,” he says, and hugs her. “Nothing will keep me from here. I promise.”

He departs for the coast and she pretends his words are enough.

\--

For Sivel, the journey south to the Frostback Mountains is both eye-opening and not. The world is so much bigger now that he is alone, so much different, and yet he finds that much is as he expected.

Shemlen give him strange looks as he makes his way through their cities. He gives them strange looks back. He suspects that the captain he pays for passage across the Waking Sea cheats him, but he gets even with the man before debarking in Ferelden.

The world is not kind to elves, but he knew that already. The city-elves— _flat ears_ , Faraan would sneer—stare at him when he passes through. He tries to avoid trouble, but trouble finds him anyway and he leaves it bleeding in an alley as far from the alienage as possible.

Elves make easy targets for injured pride and he would not leave even city-elves to pay for his actions.

The Temple of Sacred Ashes is not difficult to find as he follows the crowds of pilgrims and penitents flocking to the site. All of them wish to be near when the verdict is announced. It is easier to disappear amongst them than expected, once he learns to keep his head down and let people ignore what they will not see.

He makes a camp outside the village of Haven and settles in to watch. To wait. The mountains are cold, but he came prepared. A warm cloak wrapped around him, lined slippers to guard his feet, he familiarizes himself with the land until the time comes for the Conclave to meet.

The Chantry hires mercenaries, towering Tal-Vashoth to guard the Temple with so many important people inside, but he has ever been apt at remaining unseen. He lingers in shadowed corners, listening and learning.

The assembly argues amongst itself more than it does not, and Sivel thinks they will never reach either conclusion or compromise. Keeper Istimaethoriel may as well have not sent him at all, for these shems will talk and shout at each other until the gods return.

They will, he thinks, never stop arguing.

The cacophony of it all gives him a headache, and so he allows himself a break to wander the halls, flitting around guard peripheries down otherwise empty corridors.

He finds the first body shoved into an alcove and knows immediately that something is not right. The corpse feels _wrong_ , like the red shard Ellana brought back from Kirkwall, like grease staining the inside of his mind.

The second body is no better off, and he follows the trail of tainted blood until he comes to a closed set of doors.

A voice echoes— _Prepare the sacrifice_ —from the other side that shakes his bones and his every instinct cries out to flee before _it_ finds him, too.

Then a woman cries out, “Help me!” and he knows he cannot let anyone face that terror alone.

The doors give way to his shoulder and he stumbles into a scene he was never meant to witness. He is no First, no Second, knows nothing of magic, but he remembers Isiren incensed with him for interrupting a Keeper’s ritual and so he acts without thinking.

He reaches and yanks glowing green out of place. As his hand burns and the world erupts, he only finds himself thinking,

_This was a mistake._

\--

He runs.                                                                                                                                  

_Chittering claws on jagged stone, shaking the ground, chasing,_

_predators seeking prey with nowhere to go but_

_up. A spire looming, salvation lit green with a hand outstretched and_

_falling._

_Fear._

                                                                                                                      Pain.

 

A flash of light, then darkness.

\--

They call him the Herald of Andraste.

\--

 _Let the blade pass through the flesh,_  
_Let my blood touch the ground,_  
_Let my cries touch their hearts. Let mine be the last sacrifice._

_-Andraste 7:12_


End file.
